Many of today's computing devices are enabled with multiple networking technologies (e.g., Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.). To send and receive data using one of these technologies, a computing device includes a piece of hardware, such as a host interface card or host adapter bus (NIC/HBA), which serves as an interface between the remainder of computing device and the physical network medium. Additional software, such as device drivers, may be installed to enable the computing device's operating system to communicate with the NIC/HBA.
In addition to physical media types such as those mentioned above, many computing devices also may connect to one or more networks via virtual media types. For example, a corporate employee with public Internet access may connect to a corporate virtual private network (VPN) by creating a secure shell (SSH) tunnel through the Internet. Supporting a virtual media type typically does not require special hardware, as communications over the virtual network (e.g., a VPN) typically are transmitted via an existing physical network (e.g., are carried in the payload of the packets over the Internet).
Conventionally, a system administrator needs to launch multiple software programs (also known as media managers) to configure settings for different media types (either physical or virtual). For example, as shown in FIG. 1, a system administrator may need to launch a Wi-Fi configuration interface 102 through Wi-Fi manager 106 to configure Wi-Fi settings for connecting to network 122, to launch a separate Ethernet configuration interface 104 through Ethernet manager 108 to configure Ethernet settings for connecting to network 124, etc.
The settings and preferences entered by the system administrator are often handled and stored differently by different media managers. For example, as shown in FIG. 1, Wi-Fi manager 106 may store some configuration information in a database 112 accessible to Wi-Fi driver 110, and other configuration information may be passed to Wi-Fi driver 110 directly, which may store that configuration information in hardware registers in Wi-Fi card 118. Similarly, Ethernet manager 108 may store some configuration information in a file 114 at a designated location accessible to Ethernet driver 116, while other configuration information may be passed to Ethernet driver 116 directly and stored in hardware registers in Ethernet card 120.